Introduction
China is well-known to be a diversified country with different ethnic groups, both majorities and minorities, among the minority groups, including the Hui, a minority Muslim community comprising approximately 10 million people. The Hui community are an Islamic community that camped in China, mingled, acknowledged and got assimilated by the Chinese traditions and cultures. However, they maintained respect and strictly adhered to their Islamic cultures, rules, and practices. However, in modern China, the government has imposed distinct policies on religion, and politics of religion, affecting different faiths, with the inclusivity of the Hui community and their religion. The community has faced a significant impact on their religion due to the government politics of religion, which has affected their religious identity. The research paper will explore a brief historical and cultural background, the politics of faith in the Hui community, and its impacts on the Hui community.
Background
The Hui community, a Muslim community, are among other minority ethnic groups in China, just like the Mongolians, Hans, Zhuang, and Miao. The Hui community are said to be the descendants of Hans Chinese who converted to Islam and Muslim traders from the Arab, Persian, and Turkish empires and the Middle East who came to China during the Tang era (618-907) (Fathil, 2019). The Hui community adopted the Chinese culture but retained their ancestral cultures over time. It is known that the Hui community developed their identity during the Yuan and Ming eras. During the Yuan era (1271-1368), the term “Hui” referred to the various people from Central Asia who lived in Anxi, present-day Xinjiang, from the Tang era (Zhang & Zhang, 2015). During the Yuan era, the Mongol expeditions forced the Islamic people to move from Middle Asia and migrate to China as scouts who were later sent eastward on military missions and were expected to settle in the present-day area such as Gansu, Henan, among other regions (Zhang & Zhang, 2015). However, some were artisans, traders, handicrafts and commerce-men, leading to economic shaping among the Hui community (Chang, 1987). As a result, the Hui community identity emerged and developed among other Muslim communities in China as they were also subjected to the high social position of the Hui during the era compared to the Hans.
Moreover, during the Ming era (1368-1644), the Hui community flourished and emerged as an ethnic group. The era was when restoration and development of the social economy were underway in China, and the Hui community were subjected to change in distribution and economic status with their number increasing as well as the large number of Hui people engaging in farming with the Ming indigenous (Zurndorfer, 2022). Ever since, the Hui community has been thriving while undertaking their differing practices freely, from economic practices to religious practices perceiving relative freedom from Chinese government restrictions towards religion. However, they have been faced with religious interference by the Chinese government policies that have impacted their religion.
Hui Muslim Community Analysis
In modern-day China, the Chinese government has shown less tolerance for Hui Muslim individuals and groups that practice and exhibit their Islamic identity. Just like other Muslim communities, such as Ughur, that are undergoing different limitations and facing the wrath of the China government’s politics of religion, the Hui community, despite receiving freedom from the government in previous years compared to other Muslim communities, since, they are more Sinicized than other Muslim communities, are also facing similar challenges (Cooke, 2008). The policies are said to be similar to those faced in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The challenges the Hui Muslims face include detention, just like their Muslim counterparts, the Ughurs, and Kyrgyz, among others (Holder, 2016). According to the Congressional Executive Commission of China representative chair Christopher Smith and co-chair Jeff Merkley, the Hui community is experiencing the “Xinjiang model” of intruding and oppressive religious policies, which they are said to be due to the change in Chinese officials’ consolidation of Islamic identity and bigotry as well as the Chinese government trial to “Sinicize” Muslim communities (2021).
Notably, the Hui community have undergone massive detention by authority due to their religious identity and practices, which are moral and legally accepted. In the XUAR, the Chinese government is reported to have irrationally jailed up to 1.8 million Muslims from the ethnic minority groups, including the Hui community and other Muslim communities, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz in a vast network of mass detention camps (Zenz, 2019). According to Doman (2018), the detention of Muslims results from engaging in Islamic activities even though they are protected by international law. According to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China political prisoner database, some of the reasons related to the detention include the practice of Muslim cultures, such as being beard-Muslim, one’s ability to read and interpret the Quran, individual engagement and undertaking Muslim practices without authorization, expertise as a Muslim clergy, access or availability of Islamic digital content on the phone or computer, having previously participated in the Hajj, publishing of any Islamic related content on WeChat, among other reasons.
Nevertheless, just like the members of other Muslim ethnic minority groups in the XUAR, the Hui Muslim community have faced the utmost surveillance by the authority and constraint on free movement, expression, and religion. Additional problems include imposed political persuasion (Allen-Ebrahimian, 2019; Zenz, 2020; Zenz, 2019). Additionally, despite the various restrictions, it is noted that the Chinese government, according to Buckey and Ramzy (2020), subjected the Hui community, just like other minority Muslim communities, to discrimination by destroying significant numbers of mosques and sacred sites since 2017 despite their tolerance of the Hui community.
Explicitly, it is illogical for the Chinese government to hold tolerant policies to the Hui community’s religious identity and practices while promoting the Muslim community. On the other hand, it subjects them to discrimination and restrictions affecting their religious identity, such as burning their mosques and detaining them. In support, various reports have argued that the tolerance distinction in official policies toward Hui Muslims and the promotion of Hui communities in China is a “cultural bridge” between foreign Muslim communities and China (Leibold, 2016). Nevertheless, the Hui community are limited in undertaking their religious practices. According to a 2017 research, Cook claimed the Hui people exhibit specific but restricted aspects of Muslim rituals that are ubiquitous worldwide. These include using loudspeakers in mosques during Friday prayers, fasting during Ramadan, teenagers engaging in madrassas, children accompanying parents to prayers, and watching informative videos about Islam, among others (Cook, 2017).
Moreover, Chinese authorities have singled out Hui Muslims and Hui Muslim communities for the same restrictions and repression as the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the XUAR. According to both international social groups and Hui community members, the persecution of Islam in the XUAR seems to have expanded to Hui groups residing in other places. Noting that leaders in China away from the XUAR have as well formally detained Hui religious figures and people for online sharing of Quranic materials, for criticizing restrictions on Islamic religious practices, for purchasing Islamic books, for participating in the Hajj pilgrimage, for travelling abroad, and for opposing the destruction of a mosque (Feng, 2019; Feng, 2020). Hui Muslims outside the XUAR who had identification documents registered in the area were also detained or transferred to reeducation centres (Feng, 2020). Similar to the XUAR’s limitations and suppression of manifestations of Islamic faith, authorities in regions with sizable Hui communities have put laws and regulations restricting Hui Muslims’ access to their culture and religion in several places in China (Myler, 2019). In various parts of China, including the Beijing Municipality, officials have shut mosques, destroyed or removed minarets, domes, and other Islamic features from mosques, installed surveillance cameras inside them, shut Islamic schools, and restricted Islamic preaching, and clothing (Sun 2022).
Explicitly, the Hui Muslim community has posed a threat to the Chinese government since they have been acclaimed as a minority under the Chinese Communist Party governance model. Thus, the government should consider that the threat can be resolved by forceful assimilation and mistreatment. Prior, the Hui community undertook their religious practices freely. However, the Chinese government has intensified its campaign against the Hui community by launching a nationwide effort to Sinicize every religious and ethnic community. This resulted in several mosques’ expulsion and religious leaders’ arrest. It is noteworthy that it is reported that Xi Jinping stated in 2016 that the “Sinicization” of religion in China would be a top priority for policy (Zenz, 2021). “Sinicization” erases cultural differences from Han Chinese culture, emphasizing the Hui minority while forcibly integrating religious communities into the government and Party structure. This campaign’s implementation has completely severed communities’ links to Hui culture, religion, and one another; as a result, some leaders believe that the deletion of a significant Hui identity in a subsequent generation is a realistic chance of occurrence (Shih, 2019).
Additionally, according to a 2018 State Council directive, Arab cultural influences were to be eliminated from Islamic places of worship, dress, and religious practices. Local Islamic communities were also prohibited from holding and managing charitable funds, known as waqf, autonomously. Islamic organizations were not allowed to run programs for children, including kindergartens, Arabic language schools, and study abroad opportunities. (Myers 2019). Arabic letters and symbols on structures, in public spaces, and people’s houses are a few of the “Arab influences” targeted for eradication since 2016 (Gan, 2018). Islamic nutritional constraints have been under fire as an unfavourable manifestation of the Hui identity, with restaurants and supermarkets in China requiring them to take down their halal signage since 2016. By 2019, authorities in Ningxia, Beijing, and other places had stopped allowing wheat, dairy, and food producers to label their products halal, which was part of the Hui identity (Stroup, 2019).
Moreover, the Sinicization effort also tries to stop the passing of religious and cultural traditions from one generation to the next. In several places, entry to mosques and other places of worship by people under 18 has been outlawed, and authorities have closed Arabic and Islamic schools. Most youngsters in Gansu cannot get an education because of the severely constrained quotas for Arabic language and religion teaching (Stroup, 2019). According to Myers (2019), 2018 saw the introduction of policies, the four entries, about the Sinicization of mosques and Islamic theology by the Chinese Islamic Association. The “four entries” program instructed local officials to guarantee that the national flag, the Chinese constitution and laws, fundamental communist ideals, and Chinese traditional culture make their “entry” into Hui mosques (Myers, 2019). Mosques were forced to fly the national flag, frequently accompanied by messages encouraging nationalism, ethnic harmony, and social stability (Gan, 2018). This portrayed the Chinese government’s intense interference in the Hui Muslim practices and identity infringing their religious privacy and tradition.
The “four entries” also signalled the start of government surveillance of Hui’s private and religious affairs. Local police in Ningxia and Henan have placed surveillance cameras to monitor what goes on inside mosques (Feng, 2019). The government also asked Hui to expose the religious practices of their friends and family in exchange for financial incentives (Feng, 2019). Through Hui religious leaders, the government has attempted to inculcate the core communist ideas and Chinese traditional culture. Only those imams who commit to the government’s Sinicization policy can preach openly. (Feng 2019). Mosques lacking imams with authorization have been closed down completely. Moreover, Hui community Imams are now required by officials in Ningxia and Henan to participate in each month’s training on Party philosophy and official policies controlling ethnic minorities; they must also pass yearly examinations on Party ideology on renewing their imam licenses (Feng, 2019). Imams are constantly scrutinized to check for any departure from the accepted views of Islam. By incorporating “core socialist values” into Islamic theology, the Sinicization strategy aims to alter Islam’s essential beliefs. In order to provide official reinterpretations of Islamic theology that are in keeping with “Chinese traditional culture,” the Confucianism and “core socialist values” perspective, the state-led China Islamic Association started organizing conferences in December 2020 (Su, 2020).
The Islamic call to prayer was also banned and substituted with a siren in at least Ningxia and Gansu. At the same time, officials meticulously worked to erase Arabic inscriptions and patterns from mosque walls, as they had done with all other structures.58 Additionally, there are indications that regional administrations are connecting the Sinicization push to the anti-terrorism effort in Xinjiang. Authorities in Ningxia agreed to work together to “learn from Xinjiang’s counter-terrorism campaign” in 2018 (Su, 2020). In February 2019, two public security representatives from Xinjiang travelled to Hainan to register the identification of everyone who attended Friday prayers at least one mosque in the city of Sanya, which is home to a sizable population of the Utsul, categorized as Hui by the Chinese government, despite being more closely related to the Cham of Southeast Asia (Feng, 2020).
The Sinicization activity that may have had the most significant effect on the Hui people was shutting mosques through “consolidation” rules and outright demolition. Since the mosque is the centre of Hui community life, these closures have caused significant harm to Hui communities. The mosque serves as the social and spiritual hub of the neighbourhood, as well as opportunities for social interaction and support. Through its charity community funds (waqf), the mosque also oversees the neighbourhood’s financial resources, all of which are facets of mosque activity that the Sinicization drive has singled out. Authorities have significantly reduced the number of mosques in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region due to a “consolidation” campaign in 2020 (Stroup, 2019). According to the proposal, all mosques were to be instituted at a specific distance; if within the distance range must be shuttered, and the closed mosques would eventually be demolished. This approach resulted in the closure of around 50 mosques in Pingyuan County alone. Local communities have been presented with no formal documents approving the closure and destruction of mosques, despite the plans underway since 2017.
Similar “consolidation” operations have been reported in the province of Gansu. Authorities have taken extensive “rectification” procedures for the surviving mosques. Independent Hui researchers claim that during the past five years, a mosque in China with a domed roof and tower has had these elements forcefully removed. Such characteristics were deemed by authorities to be unwanted indications of Arab influence (Stroup, 2019). They were frequently replaced with conventional Chinese roof styles. People who opposed the demolitions or even just documented them have come under attack from the authorities. Authorities visited every Hui home in the community in Tongxin, Ningxia, following widespread protests in August 2018 due to the attempt to remove the mosque dome, demanding that each individual gives their consent to the replacement of the dome under threat of losing their jobs if they did not (Feng, 2019). Authorities razed a mosque in Gansu province’s Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in April 2019 and reportedly detained people because of recording conversations and publishing them to closed WeChat.
In conclusion, the politics of religion by the Chinese government has significantly interfered with the religious identity, especially in the Hui community. Explicitly, the Chinese government has been Sinicizing the different religions the Chinese culture, which has led to an immense impact on the Hui community’s identity, such as the detention of the Hui Muslim members, destruction of mosques, interference with their private religious affairs affecting their manner of engaging in their religious practices. However, despite the various politics of religion by the Chinese government in conflicting with the Hui Muslim community, the government should reconsider and seize offending the Hui community and interfering with their religious identity sacred places and since everyone is subjected to freedom of religion without fear of contradiction. Moreover, they should release the detained Hui community members due to the religious practice which is acceptable worldwide. This will help increase community equality and contribute to the nation’s economic and social status.
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